Not Fade Away

Thursday 29Not fade away. With the emergence of Mr. Tube, rebirth of Three Mile Pilot, and almost three years of radio silence casting a...pall over Pall Jenkins’s soul-wrecked rock act Black Heart Procession, hometown fans of the band can’t help but wonder, wherefore art thou saw songs and blinking bauble? Other than a couple of fest sets last year for the international indie hits (Adams Ave. and last month’s Melvins-curated All Tomorrows Parties in Minehead, England), the BHP camp has been pretty quiet since 2006’s rock-steady return The Spell. Get your dose of dark pop when the Procession processes into Casbah tonight and Spaceland (Silver Lake, L.A.) Saturday night. Buckfast Superbee and a.m. vibe open the San Diego show.... Grammy-winning Beach Boy Brian Wilson visits House of Blues. Wilson is out to tout That Lucky Old Sun, his 2008 song cycle collaboration with old compadre Van Dyke Parks that Rolling Stone called a “musical love letter to his native Los Angeles.” Isn’t that nice. See Jay Sanford’s Blurt this week on one of the artist’s previous visits to our fair burg.... Else: SanFran folk-pop act the Morning Benders and L.A. indie duo the Submarines dock at UCSD’s Loft space...West Indian Girl, Transfer, and Years Around the Sun fill a locals-only bill at Belly Up...Anasaziz and the Rooftop Vigilantes break into Bar Pink...Love Like Fire and a Beautiful Noise sound off at Beauty Bar...while Soda Bar draws a draught of Old In Out, Braaiins!, Monsters from Mars, and the Vajayjays.

Friday 30Punk-rock revivalists the Adolescents promise to play nice at Casbah Friday night. The hardcore supergroup consists of members from Social D and Agent Orange and on-again, off-again contributors from iconic old-schoolers Minor Threat, Black Flag, and Bad Brains. The five-piece Fullerton-based band is working on a follow-up to ‘05 reunion disc O.C. Confidential. With Screamin’ Yeehaws, Meat Wagon, and Die Sabotage, this muh fuh’s gonna be loud.... Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture, aka Nickel Eye — that’s Anguish Languish — plays the Loft with L.A. mopes Low vs. Diamond. Mr. Eye on Tuesday dropped his Rykodisc debut The Time of the Assassins, a collection of lo-fi loft-pop that the experts at Maxim magazine called “this year’s must-hear, breakthrough album!” I’m sold.... Cure curators the Cured ape their faves along with fellow tribbers Rio (Duran Duran) and Still Ill (the Smiths?) at Belly Up.... Anthology lists a Late Night Live thing featuring groomed rockers Dirty Sweet and Scarlet Symphony.... Campus stars O.A.R. will be down at House of Blues.... Get Back Loretta and the Moonlight Sexy turn on Bar Pink.... Soda Bar stages Pant Hoots, Anasaziz, and Los Otros.... Zonie alt-rockers of the Latin persuasion Fatigo make a Whistle Stop stop.... And alt-rawk quartet Modern Rifles fire off a CD-release at Ken Club for Black Box debut I Was Young, It Was Dark. Take a Space taste of “Feck Me If I’m Wrong, but Is That a Ham Sangie.” Buzzsaw guitars, angsty hollerin’ — thaaaat’s the San Diego sound all right.

Saturday 31Huntington Beach’s Hed PE hits the beach at Canes Saturday night. The boys took their “G-punk” — hip-hop ‘n’ rock — from Jive to Suburban Noize, where they recently dropped New World Orphans, a collection of their cornerstone sounds of rap, metal, and reggae with a splash of melodica, MC Underdog’s new favorite thang.... It’ll be a rockabilly roundup when Dave, Deke, and Big Sandy swing into Casbah.... KPRI’s Homegrown showcase has the room at O’Connell’s, featuring Superunloader, Soundescape, Grass Heat, and Astra Kelly.... Novelty nudnik Richard (aka Dick) Cheese and his L.A. comedy-cover band Lounge Against the Machine (feat. Bobby Ricotta and Frank Feta) play House of Blues.... Long Beach mod power-pop act the New Fidelity turn up at Bar Pink.... Euro-hit singer-songwriter James Morrison, a F.O.J.M. (friend of Jason Mraz), takes the stage at Belly Up.... Radio Room stages the Vaginals with Mega Wand. Giggity-giggity.

Monday 2A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. Casbah’s Anti-Monday crew corrals Seattle-based Sub Poppers Fruit Bats and Sera Cahoone. She used to be the drummer in Carissa’s Weird with the Band of Horses guys. Now she’s a folkie solo ahtist. Check their Space takes. Should be a good double bill.... Otherwise, “Lock up your daughters” yada yada, Motley Crue will be, oh Lord, “kicking axe at Cox” when they bring their Saints of Los Angeles tour through town. All I want to know is did they drop the umlauts or not? I really want to get it right.

Tuesday 3“Wannabe in L.A.” Desert rockers Jesse “the Devil” Hughes and Josh Homme land the Eagles of Death Metal at Belly Up Tuesday night. EDM were inspired by the elements in their name and set out to compose tunes that combined supergroup the Eagles and Euro-thrashy death metal. They ended up with what Homme describes as “bluegrass slide guitar mixed with stripper drum beats and Canned Heat vocals.” Check out last year’s critical hit but commercial curiosity Heart On for a samplin’. The Living Things set the Solana Beach stage for the Death guys.... SoCal skate-punk satirists NOFX check in at House of Blues for two. Ya get Smoke or Fire and Poor Habit leading off on Tuesday night and Youth Brigade on Wednesday.... Jazz guit god Al Di Meola has the room at Anthology. Check the Latin flair on the Jersey-born fret freak’s latest fusion World Sinfonia — La Melodia.

Wednesday 4Club date of the week on a night of killer club dates doubles Canuck art punks Fucked Up, conjuring The Chemistry of Modern Life, with like-minded Los Angelinos Mika Miko at Casbah. Fucked Up’s take on melodic punk came as a critical surprise in ‘08, garnering a ton of top-ten slots for Chemistry. And, yes, they have a giant lead singer called Pink Eyes. Mika Miko comes from the same L.A. Smell scene that gives us namedrop noise-rock acts No Age and Abe Vigoda. M&M are pretty much in that wheelhouse.... Belly Up books Denver’s gypsy-blood band DeVotchka, Eric Bachman’s (Archers of Loaf) Crooked Fingers, and L.A.-via-Toronto producer-engineer Eric Corne, whose Kid Dynamite and the Common Man song cycle is an engaging listen and includes a who’s who guest list of roots-rock royalty.... More royalty? Check this out: Anthology’ll host Mark Hummel’s Harp Summit, starring — you sitting down, harp enthusiasts? — Charlie Musselwhite, Lee Oskar, and John Mayall. Whoa. At this writing, looks as if tix are still available.— Barnaby Monk